He felt sick as they drove through the mid-morning traffic, his stomach in revolt. He slid open a window against the waves of nausea, muttering only a few words while his boys played with their Game-boys amid continued sirens. They were slowed by road construction. Then, at last, the airport complex was before them.
Mickey gripped his boys’ hands firmly as the group was escorted through the main terminal. The voices buzzing about him were disorienting. He heard German and Russian and Korean, guttural voices quarrelling about bags and tickets. Soldiers strutted by, seeming to eye them all with suspicion. The crackling of the loudspeakers began to penetrate his skull, and he grew dizzy. The harsh tones of Asian authoritarianism seemed to press in on him once more as the disembodied voices echoed off the great hall.
“Come to Chamber Three now, Yankee dog,” they could just as well have been taunting. “Time for your noon beating.”
He fought for composure as the delegation skirted the lines of international travelers. They were escorted by a Foreign Ministry man whom Mickey recognized from Lee’s department, past the smoked glass of Passport Control, past the armed soldiers through the VIP area, and into the small departure lounge. Mickey was cleared in. He had an exit visa to hitch a ride back to Washington with the delegation on the Air Force plane. The boys and the rest of the Embassy staff proceeded unchallenged, with the American ambassador and the Senate delegation. They had made it that far.
Rachel was there, and Mickey wanted to go to her, for strength, for comfort. She was deliberately ignoring him, though, as she fussed over little things, playing the staffer role again, fetching an International Herald Tribune for a senator and chatting with one of her clients, a Silicon Valley CEO. Before them was a tray of lemonade and Coke, a stack of newspapers, and pans full of hot hors d’oeuvres warmed by little Sterno cans underneath.
The twins buried themselves in the box scores, checking on baseball statistics, as their father had taught them. Mickey was at the window, nose pressed against the glass, gazing at the Air Force plane near the special VIP runway. He half expected to see Lee come sprinting across the tarmac, making an insane dash for freedom. Mickey still clung to the hope that he would appear, absurdly, suitcase in hand.
How can I leave him now? Lee had been his bridge here—master and mentor in one, his first true Chinese friend. They had swung a dozen deals together. They had played the game, sharing secret hopes and fears.
The Chinese would kill Lee. When Mickey’s boys did not return, and Mei Mei’s father went into a rage—when Mickey’s actions sparked a security review—a witch-hunt would ensue. They would choose their time and place carefully. Then they would come for Lee and make an example of him.
A sharp commotion broke out at the door. An Interior Ministry policeman was arguing with a Foreign Ministry assistant about some paperwork. Branko’s colleague from the Embassy, Peck, loitered not far to the side. Mickey was transfixed. He strained to catch Mandarin words like “papers. . . delays. . . engine.” The argument grew heated as he leaned forward in an attempt to hear more.
Then Rachel was before him, interposing her body and blocking Mickey’s view of the unfolding scene. She gave him a casual morning kiss on the cheek as she whispered. “Lee couldn’t make it. Needed to be with his father. Now, get on the damn plane.” She smiled brightly at him as she patted his cheek for emphasis, then moved on to greet Smithson before Mickey could respond.
So many eyes were watching. So little he could say now, halfway across a field of mines, lights on, snipers firing. He tried to concentrate on Michael and Henry, on bringing them home to America.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” an American voice called out after a time—it was Branko’s guy—“I have a brief announcement. We’ve got clearance for take-off. But there appears to be a brief delay. Captain Browner has powered up and found a couple of maintenance items to tend to in the cockpit. Doesn’t look serious. While he attends to this little glitch, the captain invites you all to come on board and have some ice cream in celebration of Independence Day.”
The senators and spouses went first, followed by the business travelers. Rachel was directly behind as they stood and walked toward the jet-way, a firm hand on Mickey’s back.
“Here. It’s from Lee,” she whispered again, pressing into his hand an old silver medallion, a vintage Saint Christopher, patron saint of voyagers. “Booth’s father gave it to him the day Lee flew home from Stanford.” Then she was smiling at the guy behind her as she chatted up some computer company executive. Mickey rubbed the silver furiously between his thumb and forefinger as his boys began to walk casually down the jet-way.
Shouting erupted from behind them. Mickey could see an Interior Ministry official berating the man from Lee’s department. Something about papers and access to the secure area. His troops had pea green uniforms, crisp with black pistols tightly holstered. Now he was glaring toward Mickey and the boys, a pointed finger stabbing the sheet of paper before him. His eyes were dark and challenging. The soldiers began to push forward.
A command came from behind them, and the soldiers halted just as quickly. A path parted. Another group of grim-faced officials appeared, led by a haggard looking man calmly calling the Interior Ministry official’s name. And there was Lee.
Had he come to join them? Impossible; it was too late, too overt. Was his appearance to provide some last minute insurance for the success of the plan?
Mickey fought the impulse to call out to him, to plead with him again, to pull him across the line that seemed to divide the Americans from the Chinese at the plane’s threshold.
Lee’s distant eyes told him “no,” however. They were puffy and defeated—as if Lee’s heart was long gone, fighting some other war already. It was best for Mickey to let go of hope for his friend.
Focus. Gently, he nudged his boys forward, a hand on each of their shoulders. They walked ahead, cheerful and innocent, oblivious to the determined contest of wills underway.
Just keep walking. Branko’s people had been very clear. He and the kids continued unchallenged across the threshold and down the aisles of the plane, the angry voices beginning to dissipate behind them.
There was animated conversation now among the American delegation even as some began to store their carry-on bags in the overhead bins and find their seats. Mickey grabbed a bowl of ice cream from the galley in the plane’s rear. He began to spoon-feed his boys like infants as they sat in the last row, reaching across as if trying to shield them with his body from the fracas beyond.
He started to pray in silence, afraid to look back up the aisles or out the windows into the lounge. The chatter about them seemed very slowly to settle in upon itself, like waves in the sea softening after sunset. Few noticed as the ambassador and other Beijing-based staff stepped off the plane and drifted back into the waiting area. The oxygen flowing into the cabin shot out more forcefully as the captain again powered up the engines for a test.
Then the call of frightened voices came surging down through the jet-way from back in the lounge area, American and Chinese voices shouting past each other. White smoke was billowing up from the center of the VIP lounge. People were rushing about.
Mickey witnessed it all, viewing the bizarre spectacle through the windows of the plane as it sat in its spot on the tarmac just yards away. Flames erupted quickly in the departure lounge, bits of newspaper sailing about and the Sterno stoves overturned. Automatic sprinklers shot water from the ceiling. A soldier wrestled with a fire extinguisher as more men rushed into the lounge and alarms rang. From the cockpit, Captain Browner barked orders to seal the plane. Almost immediately, they began to roll away toward safety.
Out his window, Mickey could see a fire crew race into the secure area, spraying the buffet table and couches with foam. Through the smoke, Mickey could just make out the stoic face of Lee standing by, stamping calmly on the ashes. Lee peered up one final time to watch them pull away, looking for all the world like Zhivago’s brother, the aging rev
olutionary from Pasternak’s last scene, gazing wistfully at a future that had just passed him by.
There was animated chatter onboard the swiftly rolling plane now as it sped away from the fire danger, dozens of voices talking all at once. Over the intercom, the “Star Spangled Banner” was blaring. The aircraft raced forward down its dedicated runway, then was airborne to the music. In minutes, the Air Force plane was out over the East Pacific, safely into international airspace. The boys were giggling with excitement. Mickey was shaking as he tried to cover himself with nervous laughter.
“I have a holiday surprise for you,” he said sheepishly as Michael and Henry looked at each other, confused but grinning. “They said I could take you for a special ride—maybe all the way to Alaska.”
Then he held them tight, tears of joy mingling with tears of sorrow.
NIGHTCAP
By the time Mickey Dooley and his boys landed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, the carefully woven fabric of U.S.-China relations had begun to shred. Official Beijing was full of super-charged rhetoric. But inside their airborne cocoon, as they waited on the runway for refueling, the American travelers were, for the most part, blissfully ignorant of global developments.
With his groggy boys, Mickey slipped away from the delegation and disembarked at the military facility just outside of Anchorage. They rode in a car Branko had sent, heading straight to the international airport and a United flight to San Francisco. Albuquerque, Branko had concluded, would become too hot, the media likely to turn the grandparents’ neighborhood into a replay of the Elian Gonzalez circus once played out in Miami. They even had a passing concern about Mei Mei’s father sending agents to pull some wild stunt on U.S. soil, though few in Langley took that threat seriously.
Mickey was sobered by the need to further debrief his Agency escort about his on again-off again efforts to recruit Lee. He employed some code names and phrases about the fruitless attempt to bring Lee in, lest the serious talk in front of the kids concern them. He remained horrified by what might befall Lee, marooned in his homeland. But Mickey stuck to the facts and focused on getting through with the boys. The Agency officers then brought them through a secure entrance to the terminal, giving Dooley two overnight bags with some underwear, socks, and a clean change of clothes for his sons. There would be more in California, he was assured.
Mickey postponed a more serious reckoning with the boys, devising an elaborate tale on the plane about a surprise visit to the grandparents and a major league baseball game. He fervently hoped it would be his last lie. It would not be easy for the boys to endure the separation to come, with their mother in a fury back in Beijing.
For now, the boys took it all as a lark as they arrived back in the USA. During those first hours of flight, the strangest thing for Michael and Henry turned out to be the fact that, having crossed the international dateline, it was July 4th all over again in Anchorage. They were giggling about the “Groundhog Day” movie with Bill Murray they had seen on video—clamoring for a holiday do-over. But they were hurried away and pre-boarded, First Class, on the domestic flight. They were asleep again before they took off, bound for California. Mickey was still in a state of shock, worrying about Lee and awaiting an uncertain future.
Rachel flew on toward Washington with Smithson’s entourage. Out her window, the jagged peaks of the Canadian Rockies gave way to the great flat northern plains. There had been little cell phone traffic from Alaska because everyone but Mickey and the boys had stayed on board. Gossip from those who had called home nevertheless began to fill the fliers in on the drama unfolding about them.
They had become part of an international incident, the full significance of which was as yet unclear. The only overt sign on board was when Senator Smithson huddled with military liaison in the cockpit, on what Rachel later learned was some special Pentagon hook-up.
It was very late Saturday night—again—when the plane finally rolled to a halt at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. The fireworks on the Mall were long past done, dissipated into the tons of garbage that patriotic revelers left in their wake. The exhausted travelers gathered their carry-on bags and peered onto the tarmac. Just outside the modest military arrival terminal, a full press stakeout awaited them, complete with live cameras and bug-attracting klieg lights penetrating the heavy air. There, too, to Rachel’s great relief, was Alexander.
“Welcome back to the land of the free!” said Alexander, greeting her with a chaste peck and immediately taking her carry-on bag. “You guys OK?”
“Bless you for being here,” Rachel said, clutching his arm as she waved away a couple of reporters headed her way. “I haven’t become work for you again, have I?”
“I came for you, not for this circus.”
“What the hell!” An elongated boom mike was hanging just above Alexander’s head, and Rachel swatted at it as if it was some grotesque insect. It seemed to bob and weave, guided by its own manic design, before veering off toward another target.
A few minutes later, they were safe in Alexander’s car, motoring across the still-busy Beltway and around the weary city.
“I’m afraid I’m not quite all here,” Rachel apologized, breaking the silence.
“It’s always a killer flight. Even with Air Force wheels.”
“Eighteen hours—and through about four civilizations, it feels like. Major culture shock.”
“And I thought we were converging.” Alexander chuckled before putting the question to her: “So, what exactly happened at the Beijing airport? Did you see how he did it?”
“Did what?”
“The, uh, ‘kidnapping’ I believe is what the Chinese Foreign Ministry is calling it.”
“Kidnapping! You’re serious?”
“Really. It’s all over the news. They’re making a really big stink about it. And it’s the perfect cover because the PRC is rolling out their annual Taiwan war game exercise early. So it’s part of a much bigger story. Was it really Mickey and his boys?”
Rachel buried her eyes in her palms, rubbing in a vain search for clarity. “Yes, Alexander, it really was. And Cowboy Mickey pulled it off.” Then she slumped back, her thoughts on Jamie and the coming dawn.
There was an awkward scene when they first arrived at Rachel’s home. Barry was up, pacing in the hallway. Having tucked Jamie in, he was there for the night, evidently, and had opened up the sofa-bed in the den. Several of his bags were packed in the front hallway for his morning departure.
An opera was playing in hidden speakers—Pavarotti—too boisterous for midnight. Rachel set her bags in the front hall and Barry hugged her, told her he was relieved she was back safe and sound. She lingered a long moment while Alexander busied himself with her bags in the entry, then she headed up to give Jamie a kiss and collapse in her bed.
Barry and Alexander made small talk, non-sequiturs trailing into meaningless generalities—the weather, the Nationals’ playoff hopes, whatever. Alexander went to use the toilet before hitting the road. But when he came back, Barry had two Amarettos in his hand, standing expectantly.
“Nightcap?” The question hung in the air, part demand, part peace offering.
“Sure,” Alexander said. “I guess I could use one.”
He followed Barry through an immaculate kitchen, where only the stove light illuminated glistening counters. He waited as Barry fiddled with the lock to the sliding glass door, and then they walked together onto the deck, side by side. A fattened moon rode between waves of rolling clouds. The air was thick with crickets and humidity; it seemed too bright for the depths of the night.
They sipped the almond liquor, and leaned against the railing, peering into the distance. “So, I’m off for a few weeks,” Barry said matter-of-factly, leaving his itinerary typically vague.
“Jamie will miss having you twenty-four/seven, I’m sure.”
“We had a great two weeks.”
Alexander was staring down, averting his eyes even in the dark.
&nbs
p; “You know, there’s something I always meant to ask you, Bonner.”
Something in Barry’s tone made Alexander want to leave. He regretted accepting the drink. He felt guilty; he didn’t really want to be there with Barry, for whatever it was that needed to be said.
“I mean, I don’t necessarily have any right,” Barry said, stumbling. Alexander could hear now that this wasn’t his first drink of the evening. “But, then, what the hell.”
“Barry,” Alexander began, turning to face him, “you don’t need to—”
“For old times’ sake. You can ask your own question first.”
Barry had squared up at him, taller and more formidable than Alexander had remembered. Alexander saw the strength in his shoulders, the old swimmer’s bulk looming above him in a streak of moonlight.
“C’mon, I’m not really up for—”
“Just do this with me. Ask me whatever the hell comes to mind. I get one question for you. And no bullshit.”
“Sheesh.” Alexander felt his head droop.
He could hear Barry breathing, too close, an intimidating presence. They stayed like that for several moments, Alexander waiting.
“OK. . .”
“Shoot.”
“OK,” Alexander began again, “I guess I always did wonder. . .”
“What?”
“What’s the deal with all the safes?”
Barry did not answer immediately. After several moments, he just repeated “the safes.”
“Yeah. Like the wall safe, the combo safe on the filing cabinets—your whole inner sanctum thing with all your stuff.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t need all that security just to bring your Wall Street business home. Can’t be that many corporate secrets you carry around on weekends.”
There was a stillness about them now as the clouds streamed noiselessly before the flush moon.
The Mandarin Club Page 26
